Millionaires don’t really look like millionaires, do they? Elon Musk doesn’t even look like a millionaire, and he’s actually a billionaire.
As I look at them, on their iPhones sipping their espressos, I wonder. I wonder, do they only ever travel first? Do they mix with other people? In their everyday lives? Do they mix with Club Class people? Economy people? I know they employ them, but do they mix with them? And what do they all do for jobs? How do they have so much money? Are they good people? I imagine Alexa flying business for her job before everything happened. I can imagine her here somehow. She’d look the part, even in her powder blue prison uniform. And Eddie. I can easily imagine Eddie here, a ghost lurking in one of the shadowy leather-bound corners, coffee cup in hand, eyes restlessly scanning, missing nothing. I returned his email with a call the day before the wedding. It was an odd call. I felt he wanted to say something but maybe he was being monitored this time. I can definitely imagine him here. But not Holli. I can’t imagine Holli here the way I can Eddie or Alexa. I wonder if she’s ever even left the country. Has she felt the Mediterranean sun? Let alone the wet heat of the tropics? I doubt it. But maybe I’m stereotyping, maybe Holli used to travel all the time. There’s that guilt again. Don’t overthink it, Erin, just enjoy it.
For the first time in my life I board the flight and turn left; everyone else turns right. And if I’m honest it’s hard not to feel special, even though I’m aware I’ve just paid a lot more money than everyone else, money that we only really have by various quirks of fate and birth. But I do. Feel special.
“It’s a Dreamliner,” Mark leans in and whispers.
I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“The plane,” he explains.
“Oh, the plane is a Dreamliner.” I give him a teasing look. “I didn’t realize you were so into planes.” I grin.
Mark’s into planes. Weird that I’ve never noticed. I can see why he might want to keep that hobby under wraps. Not the sexiest interest a man can have. But he has lots of other pretty sexy hobbies, so I’m fairly comfortable letting him off on this one. I make a mental note to get him something plane-related for Christmas. Maybe a coffee table book, a nice one. I’ll check out some plane documentaries.
Mark and I have the two front-row center seats and my God it’s not like economy seating. First has only eight seats. Only two rows of seating in the whole cabin. And even they aren’t full. It’s quiet up at this end of the plane. Peaceful.
This is to economy what organic farming is to factory farming. The economy passengers way back there, like industrially farmed chickens cramped in for eleven hours. And us, the corn-fed free-range chickens, happily clucking our way through the tall grass. Maybe that’s the wrong metaphor; maybe we’re actually the farmers?
I sink down into my seat, buttery leather with that fresh new-car smell. The seat walls reach all around us high enough so that I can’t see the other passengers in their seats over it, but low enough that I can see the hostess when she passes. She comes around the five passengers and hands out champagne in tall chilled glasses as people take their seats and stow away hand luggage.
We explore our nests, our homes for the next eleven hours; the electronic wall dividing our seats is lowered and we investigate all our new devices together. A flat-screen TV is mounted on the seat wall in front of me, handy little storage cupboards, noise-canceling headphones. A wash kit squirreled away, embossed with “First,” full of miniature products that weirdly remind me of the Fisher-Price kitchen set I had as a child. When I used to play house. I find a generously sized fold-out one-person dining table in the cupboard above the armrest. And, yes, I am excited by that! I’m drinking champagne at nine forty-five in the morning; of course I’m excited by that. I’m excited by everything! I slide my carry-on bag into a cubbyhole. It was a wedding gift from Fred. He was so happy to be a part of our wedding. To walk me down the aisle. To stand there beside me. I know it meant a lot to him to be asked. Lovely Fred. Fred and Nancy. They never had kids themselves. Perhaps they could be godparents? When the time comes maybe? I think I’d like that. I wonder if Mark would like that.
And just like that we’re in the air.
My mouth is full of champagne when the stewardess pops her head over the wall and asks what size pajamas I’ll need. Caught in the act, I feel my neck warm with embarrassment, breakfast-time lush that I am.
“Small. Thank you very much,” I manage after I’ve swallowed.
She smiles and hands me the small navy pajama set wrapped in white ribbons, a white BA logo emblazoned on the left breast. Soft. Snug.
“Just let me know if you fancy a nap later,” she trills, “and I’ll make up your bed for you, okay?” And she’s gone from view.
I’ve always had a bit of a problem with free champagne. Lovely, lovely free champagne. I find it very hard to turn down. If the glass gets topped up, it gets drunk. It’s the one time that the phrase “You’ll regret not finishing that” actually resonates with me. So three glasses in, and one in-flight movie down, the stewardess and I are having a nap-related chat.
My bed is made up by the time I’m back from brushing my teeth in the cavernous washroom, the basin being a good three-stride walk from the toilet. The bed looks pretty inviting: thick duvet, plump pillow, all made up on the flat cabin bed. Mark laughs at me through the partition wall as I clamber in.
“I can’t believe you’re drunk already. We haven’t even been married a full day yet.”
“I got excited. Now shush, you, I’m going to sleep it off,” I say as the electric divider slowly blocks out his grinning face.
“Night, you old alkie.” He laughs again.
I smile to myself. All tucked up cozy in my nook, I close my eyes.
I manage a fairly impressive seven hours’ sleep on the first flight. And when we land in LAX I’m feeling relatively well rested and thankfully fully sober. I’ve never been a big drinker. A few of glasses of anything and I’m knocked out. Mark stayed up the whole flight watching movies and reading.
At LAX we find our way to the first-class lounge of American Airlines. It’s not quite as impressive as Heathrow, but we’ve got only thirty minutes to kill now until our flight to Tahiti boards. This is the tricky part of the trip. The midway point. The eleven-hour flight to LAX done. The eight-hour flight to Tahiti about to start, followed by a forty-five-minute flight to Bora Bora and then a private boat trip around the atoll to the Four Seasons hotel.
We get an email from Mark’s parents. Family photos they took at the wedding yesterday. There we all are—at least I think it’s us, we’re pretty blurry and we all have red eyes, but it’s definitely us. I suddenly realize I’ve never felt happier than I do at this very moment.
* * *
—
Mark manages six hours’ sleep on the next flight. This time I stay awake, gazing out of my oval window, transfixed by the pinks and purples of the setting sun reflecting off the vast Pacific Ocean beneath us. The clouds: miles and miles of mountainous white, turning peachy in the fading sunlight. And then just blueness, rich, dark velvet blue. And stars.